


someone you'd admire

by NotAllThoseWhoWander



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAllThoseWhoWander/pseuds/NotAllThoseWhoWander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay, I'll admit it: I stress-write. I should be finishing college applications and lab reports and art history homework but AO3 was calling my name. Title credit goes to Fleet Foxes; alas, my creativity holds no copyright here. Only the words are original.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I'll admit it: I stress-write. I should be finishing college applications and lab reports and art history homework but AO3 was calling my name. Title credit goes to Fleet Foxes; alas, my creativity holds no copyright here. Only the words are original.

 

 

* * *

1.

 

The title reads:  _L'Avenir D'art_ , but Grantaire isn't interested in the flyer. He allows his gaze to drift to the back of the Musain, to Enjolras bent over a waxy desk, and allows himself to memorize the structure of Enjolras's face.

Cheekbones and jawline and the slope of neck and shoulder like it's charcoal sketched rough but perfect by the hand of some graceful muse. He imagines Enjolras in Greek garb, bared to the waist.

"Well?" The skinny student shakes the flyer under Grantaire's nose. "Are you going to come, or not?"

"When is it?"

"Tomorrow night," the student says. His vest is threadbare, hangs on a gangly frame. Thin shoulders. Grantaire is willing to bet a bottle of Dupont's good red wine that the kid hasn't had a good hearty meal in a month. "Look, it's a one-night lecture. I figured you'd be interested on account of your sketches." _  
_

Grantaire shifts his elbow, doing a bad job of covering up the sheets of parchment on the table.

"No," he says, solidly. "I'm not interested."

The kid pulls his face into a frown. "Your loss,  _monsieur_ ," he mutters, ungraciously.  _  
_

Grantaire is happy with his candlelight, his sketches. Lets his fingers trace out Enjolras's profile, the incline of his nose.

Enjolras turns away.

Grantaire turns the paper away and commences drawing Enjolras from the back.

* * *

_Je t'aime, je t'aime_

_Je suis fou, Je brûle pour vous_

_tout mes jours, tout mes jours_

* * *

_  
_He files the papers in a drawer under his window.

Drink all the light in now, R, before you return to your cave.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

II. 

 

"What is this stuff?" He stares at the gamin, at the grimy face and bare feet. A man's floral vest, worn open over a skinny chest. "It looks deadly."

There's no label on the bottle.

" _Le vin. Vous voulez_?"

Grantaire sighs, fishes in his pocket. Extracts a handful of change. " _Oui. Donnez._ "

The kid hands it over, takes the changs, counts it slowly.

" _Non, monsieur, c'est seulement un sous._ "

The light of the Musain burn yellow through the mist. 

"Keep it, kid." He jerks the cork out of the bottle's top. "You're too honest for your own good."

* * *

 

He and Bahorel get into the fight that night, when Grantaire's halfway through the bottle and swaying on his feet. They don't fight with each other—they've done that enough—but with a couple of crass southerners who've come into the Musain and are being loud and slapping the ass of the girl behind the counter, who Grantaire once got 'friendly' with after he'd drunk absinthe.

Bahorel is a good fighter. Grantaire is a  _good_ fighter. They go down in a tangle of limbs, the four of them, until they're stumbling out the door, into the bitter foggy night.

Someone is shouting—Grantaire thinks it's Joly but it might be Marius—and Éponine, that shadowy girl who dogs Marius everywhere, is trying to pull Bahorel off of the southerner. Then Joly and Jehan get in there, all digging elbows and sharp knees. 

When the two southerners get to their feet, clumsy and beaten, and go off cursing into the darkness, Grantaire stumbles to lean against the brick wall. He presses his fist under his nose, and it comes away bloody.

"That was extremely foolish."

Grantaire turns away from the voice, from the light coming through the open doorway. "Please, don't."

"More than foolish, it was arrogant and idiotic." Enjolras shakes a worn kerchief from his pocket. "I don't imagine that the Musain will be so willing to accomodate us, after that show of absolute stupidity." 

"It's in my nature," Grantaire says, both to the fighting and the stupidity. 

"Take this." Enjolras presses the handkerchief into Grantaire's hand. "And stay outside until I smooth things over with that poor woman."

Even after he's gone inside, Grantaire can feel the burn of where Enjolras's fingers had brushed his own.

* * *

And then it's almost midnight and Grantaire is still outside, bent double and vomiting in the alleyway. 

"R."

"Not now." He puts his forearms up against the wall and puts his forehead on his arm. The bricks are cold. "Please."

"You're not well." Enjolras stands stiffly. "Drunk, I'm sure."

"I'm not drunk," he says. "Not drunk."

But he is; it's the bad unlabeled wine and that damn  _gamin_ who was too honest for his own good, and now he's just empty, barren, waiting for a human touch to come and make him whole again.

Enjolras allows the silence to stiffen.

"Well," he says, finally, and watches Grantaire doubled over. "I trust that you'll survive."

Grantaire hears him walk away, footsteps quick.

_Je fais toujours._

* * *

 

 


End file.
